COMM4849-001
Blog Four
Vannessa Sutter-Smith
Dr. Ronald Strand
June 28, 2018
Charity:
water’s campaign – Pledge your birthday,
is a great example of a successful social marketing campaign.
The organization
utilizes simple marketing outlets including their website and blog posts in an
attempt to influence others to pledge or essentially give up their birthday in
exchange for raising funds and donations towards a great cause. Charity: water
also uses an array of marketing techniques including videos, statistics and the
use of storytelling to reach their intended audiences. The behavioral change
Charity: Water is trying to impact is that of being selfless – by giving up
your birthday, or potentially the traditional conventions associated with a
birthday, e.g. receiving gifts and money for yourself – etc. Once you have
pledged your birthday, 100 per cent of the donations received are dispersed out
to people around the world in need of clean water.
Although
the target audience is not specifically identified, the website states that
over 95,755
people have pledged their birthday to-date. My perception of the desired target
audience sought by Charity: Water is quite broad; my assumption is that they
would prefer to have a wide range of audiences to target with different methods
for each group, in order to ensure maximum participation across the board. With
that being said, via some deeper research of the pledge your birthday campaign,
there was frequently repeated content reporting on pledgees being in the 20
to 30 years-of-age range.
I
would not say the negative behaviour is clearly identified; it appears to be
brought about more subtly than that. Charity: Water does not explicitly say
that celebrating your birthday is a negative behaviour - instead, the
organization suggests that by changing the way you celebrate your birthday –
and utilizing a selfless or philanthropic mindset - you are able to support a
great cause and help an average of 38 people in
receiving clean drinking water.
The
benefits of the positive behaviour are clearly identified. The Charity: Water
website states, “$770 Is the
average amount raised by a person’s birthday campaign. 38 people get clean
water as a result of an average birthday campaign; and $9Million has already
been raised for clean water through birthdays.”
I
believe the charity benefits from using this type of social marketing campaign
because it allows the organization to utilize another method in an attempt to
reach their target audiences and achieve their overall goal – raising funds to
help millions of people in impoverish countries by providing them with access
to clean drinking water.
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